Anderson v. Kinnear

Citations

• 80 Wash. 638
• 141 P. 1151
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 1352

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations—Streets — Negligent Use — Collision With Automobile—Contributory Negligence—Evidence—Sueeiciency. In an action for personal injuries sustained through a collision with an automobile, driven at an excessive rate of speed and in plain violation of law, the refusal of the court to grant a nonsuit on the ground of the contributory negligence of the plaintiff was warranted, where it appeared' that the plaintiff, as soon as he saw the defendant’s automobile, shut off the power of his motorcycle and entered upon the crossing at a slow rate of speed, and finally stopped his motorcycle, but was nevertheless run down and injured.</p> <p>Trial—Instructions—Requests. It is not error to refuse an instruction defining contributory negligence, where the same was, in substance, given by the court in other instructions.</p> <p>Trial—Instructions—Comment on Evidence. An instruction that an ordinance of a city limited the speed of automobiles on city streets, except at street crossings, where the laws of the state fixed the maximum rate of speed, and that if the defendant was found to have violated the law in this respect the verdict should be for plaintiff, is not objectionable as a comment on the evidence in that the ordinance limiting the rate of speed made no exception at street crossings, since the ordinance must be construed in connection with the state law.</p> <p>Same—Assumption as to Facts. An instruction is not faulty in that it assumes that an automobile was traveling along a certain street in the city of T., where there was no pleading or proof that the collision occurred in such city, when it was assumed at the trial that the street was in the city of T., the case was tried there, and the jury was sent to view the place of the accident.</p> <p>Municipal Corporations—Use op Streets—Negligence Per Se. It is negligence per se to drive an automobile on a city street at a speed in excess of the rate fixed by a city ordinance and the state law.</p>